The invention relates in general to an apparatus, method and data structure for providing dietary information to assist in the research, evaluation, and selection of dietary products, including food, drink, and drugs, based on information provided by system users.
In the past, dietitians and nutritionists prepared personalized menus for individuals. Planning nutritious and appealing menus is a daunting and time-consuming task for a physician, nurse or even a master dietitian. Moreover, individual counseling sessions or traditional group sessions do not allow for menu planning time. Despite the obvious benefits, it is currently cost prohibitive for many individuals and households to obtain menu guidance. Therefore, most individuals or facilities in need of planned menus must plan them manually on their own or with the use of the primitive software or websites that produce template or static menus.
Several patents and articles have been published in the dietary field. For example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,807,169 (to Overbeck), 5,673,691 (to Abrams et al.), and 5,983,200 (to Slotznick); Balintfy, J. L., “Menu planning by computer,” Communications of the ACM, 7:255–259 (1964); and Petot, G. J., et al., An Artificial Intelligence System for Computer-Assisted Menu Planning,” Journal of the American Dietetic Association, 98:1009–1014 (1998), each of which is herein incorporated by reference in its entirety, relate to dietary information generally. Each of these references has serious deficiencies and none provide the comprehensive research, data acquisition, analytical tools, data evaluation, and user interface/selection of the present invention.
The foregoing demonstrates that there is a need for an invention which allows an individual to obtain dietary information based on a variety of factors, including an individual's medical nutritional needs, specific medication(s) (which may have drug/nutrient interaction implications), cooking skills, food expense budget, food preferences (including, for example, favorite recipes), food allergies, lief stage, and lifestyle.